Durability can be just an impression, and a deceptive one at that. The most durable looking car I had was an Audi that looked and felt like a tank. However the suspension broke down every year and needed replacing, the 2.5 TDI engine was so fragile it was scary, and the gearbox broke down soon after I bought it. So basically it looked incredibly solid on the outside while being a flimsy PoS where it mattered.

Then again, i have a super-flimsy looking Canon kit zoom lens made in 1987., which still works perfectly.

These anecdotal examples mean virtually nothing.

You have not factored out the operator's influence in these cases so they are not comparable. You might be someone who babies their camera gear but abuses their cars, or the flimsy-feeling appearance of one item made you subconsciously take more care of it than the other, whose tough look and feel inspired carelessness.

Statistically, camera gear made in 1987 has a much much higher probability of still working today (for instance, mine still all work 100%) than cars made in that year (all cars I personally know made in that year have now been scrapped), and that's across all cameras and lenses on one side and cars on the other. So the mentioning of 1987 also means nothing.

In other words, this message of yours constitutes a useless user review for both the car and the lens. I understand you were not claiming this to be a review of either, but you are making points with them like a reviewer (e.g. MT) makes points with their observations. If you think it's fine to make points in this way maybe your requirements for personal reviews are a bit more relaxed than some of the other review readers who are contributing to this thread.

"User reviews" from people whose main interests are not writing reviews tend to have these problems. Users who are not professional reviewers usually do not spend enough effort to isolate issues and some positively avoid using numbers as much as possible or follow a fixed procedure, compared with professional review establishments. This frees the reviewer/blogger up so they could write pieces that are a lot more enjoyable to read (I've found MT's reviews much better reads than, for instance DPR reviews), but unless a reader has followed a reviewer for some time and obtained a good feel of their personal preferences etc. to establish a reasonable context, such a user review is virtually useless as a review. Expressions like "consumer appliance" in a camera review mean almost nothing, unless the reader has been following the reviewer and found a good sync with them in subjective matters.

I liked the GH3 review in question here a lot, because I generally like reading MT's reviews and think this one does not disappoint. But I also like the fact that a lot of people voiced their dislikes or disagreements which have helped establish a richer context for that review and therefore added values to it. Both MT and his naysayers have made positive contributions to my process of understanding this camera, should I consider buying one in the near future. I'd now risk saying that without the naysaying, MT's review would have been much less useful to me.

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